Below is a poem or short meditation by Scott Farlow, created in response to conversations during workshops at Heald Farm Court and Foundry Whalf on 13th December 2021.
The Cosy Jumper is a project exploring human feelings of connections and togetherness, through knitting, poetry, sound, and movement. Lou Chapelle will hold a series of workshops that will lead to the creation of a video which will be presented in the public realm in January 2022. The Cosy Jumpers is a commission by Heart of Glass, working with Taurus Housing, residents from Foundry Wharf, and U3A, and inspired by a previous project: You make me feel good. Funded by Arts Council England, Creative People and Places program.
Artistic director Lou Chapelle
Film-maker Tim Brunsden
Sound artist Laura Campbell
Poet Scott Farlow
Choreographer Stacey Atkinson
IN MEMORIES OF MEMORIES – a short meditation
Through the haze,
With birdsong calling,
And echoes reverberating
Across the dense flat mire,
The shadows swoop, flitter and disappear
Only to reappear, here and there, in a blink of my eye.
I sit quietly
With my thoughts, calm in the gentle breeze,
And admire the ever-changing evanescence
That brings to life and magnifies buried treasures
Of past joy and chaos
Of love and loss.
What is life when you are gone?
At sundown
The departing light
Gives rise to memories and reflections,
Illuminating obscured fragments that I keep alive
And bright
By their telling
To the moon at starlight.
The fading pattern on your faded gold-rimmed tea cup,
That sits still and alone on the sideboard,
Not chipped, not perfect, but waiting imperfectly and patiently
Watched over by sepia prints and an assortment of framed portraits of
Swept back hair and frozen smiles
And vanishing pastimes.
Your elusive scent sometimes fills the air
And catches me unawares,
It takes refuge in the folds of the curtains
And occasionally greets me with a gentle kiss from the depths of my pillow;
Still potent and bold.
I am becalmed now,
And in possession of my senses
As I recall the most precious of your possessions;
Your wry smile,
That keeps us both alive.
And the music
And the timbre of your voice
That echoes gently, calling
Ghostlike
Now, as delicate threads
Through the twilight trees.
Quiet whisperings of you.
Sometimes I am angry with you
For leaving me behind.
Sometimes I am maudlin, lost, paralysed, inert, inept,
Sometimes I am simply empty.
Sometimes not.
And, sometimes,
For only a moment or two,
I actually forget you.
Yes,
A memory,
Reborn in the now
And alive in my mind,
Will never die.
I hope that you are pleased to know this,
Though the presence of your touch is distant now,
It remains felt
And real
Where it needs to be felt,
As I try to hold on and let go.
And though this wasn’t always true
It is now.
And I am grateful for that.
For the rich golden fabric of your spirit
– sometimes coarse, sometimes silken –
Is wrapped around my heart,
Aglow,
And softly beating still,
And I smile.